Special

Life And Teaching Of The Masters Of The Far East Baird Thomas Spalding (1924). Life and teaching of the masters of the Far East. Camarillo, California, Devorss Publications A Book Review by Ozodi Osuji I just read "Life and teaching of the masters of the Far East" by Baird Thomas Spalding. The author claimed to have visited India and other parts of the Far East in 1894 and spent some years there studying under those he called "masters of the far east". The book is a narration of his interactions with those alleged masters. One fact stands out in my…

ON FATHER'S DAY: Making Nigeria great is a duty for all Fathers Come t think of it, it is a lot easier to criticize and condemn than to stoop down and construct. Tearing down or shredding Nigeria to pieces is the work of a destructive brain while a constructive mind with intellect seeks opportunities to redeem, energize and infuse life into UNFINISHED piece of work. A destructive Nigerian is unhelpful and critical. Both his input and output can be described as negative. He makes disparaging remarks, and his words are as harsh as the sun shining around the equator. The…

The aim of this essay is three-fold. First is to state emphatically that despite all what is being said and done, Ndiigbo shall rise again and are rising. The second point is to state categorically that Igbos shall pursue their liberation through peaceful means and diplomatic coexistence. Thirdly, we Igbos shall laboriously examine areas Igbos including this writer need to strengthen as we inexorably, unalterably, and unavoidably rise to our former preeminence. We admit we have made mistakes in the past in our relationships with each other and with other Nigerians. We are aware and becoming honest with ourselves. We…

We are not enjoying today. Why should we? Anybody shouldn't either . You woke up this Mother's Day Sunday morning with more sadness and mists in your eyes than joy. You and I have been thinking about what a screwed-up world we are in. and how unfair and inhumane some of us can be to others. Would women (Muslim and Christian) all over the world ever enjoy Mother's Day celebration? Some horrific bandits armed with bombs and grenades are desecrating whole villages in Northern Nigeria just because they detest impartiality and equal opportunity for women. They equate western education with…

A teacher retiring from a Nigerian secondary school calls to say things are very, very tough nowadays for people in Nigeria. He says money is scarce, unemployment severe, and people are struggling to make ends meet. He says Nigerians are straining to survive in ways that are both ruthless and immoral, including, armed robbery, kidnapping, witchcraft, prostitution, and murders. He says life boils down to a maddening scramble to get beyond the past through acquiring money by any means necessary. The desire to want to get past the past is commendable if done in the right spirit. The purpose of…

As the news of Fulani attackers in Igboland filters through the internet, this writer called a few friends to find out their reactions. The purpose of this write up is to report on how some Nigerians reacted to Fulani herders/murderers who are terrorizing citizens of Southern Nigeria. Conversations were held with a fearful Owerri woman whose account I didn’t bother to write down in details because she wasn’t able to make much sense; my secondary school classmate who was a Nigerian Ambassador retiring in Plateau State; my old New York Igbo friend who calls himself a political philosopher (sometimes, Emeka…

The purpose of the instant essay is to argue that the killings of women in Nigerian society will continue so long as women are considered to be property. Charles Adegbite from Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria, filed a report on July 3, 2013. The report stated that 45-year-old Daramola, a motorcycle repairer and farmer, beat his wife , Iyalo Daramola, a mother of three children to death and buried her after the incident, because she requested for food money and the man said he had no money. Unfortunately, while he was talking, the sum of N38,000 ($125) allegedly fell from his pocket. As…

A Nigerian New Yorker calls and says: "Doc, this man's wife called police to put him out of the house, and she wants to get a divorce, and now he is threatening to kill her." I fought for 2 days to get the Igbo would-be killer's mobile phone number, and when I finally left him a voice mail he failed to respond. Then I texted and warned him against any violence. He responded with a mixture of anger, pride and shame. "PLAY THAT GAME IN ATLANTA. THIS NEW YORK BIG APPLE." He has terrorized and beaten his lawyer wife to…

Weinberg, Steven (1977). The First Three Minutes. New York: Basic Books. 178 pages A Book Review by Ozodi Osuji I have heard about this book, The First three Minutes; indeed, I have seen it at bookstores but had never had the urge to read it. I supposed that its contents are found in the various books on astrophysics and cosmology that mention it; moreover, it seemed, today, dated given when it was written, 1977. I read more contemporary books on astrophysics, so I did not feel like returning to the 1970s to find out the state of the art of…

November 8, 2015 Open Letter to President Muhammadu Buhari Aso Rock, Abuja Nigeria Dear Mr. President, You recorded a clear victory during Nigeria’s 2015 election and you and the former President Goodluck Jonathan made Nigeria proud by a smooth transition from one civilian president to another of a different party. It is a legacy that Nigerians would want to keep for a long time. You promised that you would be a different kind of president and Nigerians and the world cheered. We interpreted the “change” to mean a change for the better. Many Nigerians and the world hoped that the…

Don Piper (2004). 90 Minutes in Heaven. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Revell. A Book review Ozodi Osuji I have read several books on Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and Out of Body Experiences (OBEs). Yesterday, I was at a book store and picked up yet another book on near death experience. I got home and began reading it and did not put it down until I was done with it his morning and decided to do a double take on it, review it as well as use it as a spring board to ask questions on near death phenomenon. In this particular…

The news about the directive or rather order by the senate on the 11th of this month to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to suspend the fixed charge of N702.00, which it has been collecting from electricity consumers across the federation following unending complaints against the policy by Nigerians has been greatly applauded as the right step in the right direction, given its anti-people oriented and exploitative coloration. When this good news filtered into the public domain, many a consumer of power supply heaved a profound sigh of relief having been subjected to the fixed charge without proportionate benefit…

Is Lagos a no-man land? I have asked several Nigerians this question as a joke and also in all seriousness. Was Lagos ever a no-man’s land? Is Lagos becoming a no-man’s land? Many Nigerians have weighed in on this controversy. Some have done so angrily. Others are hiding their emotions. I am finding out that jokes serve some useful purpose in life. I am also finding out that every joke has a truth in it. A joke is told to reduce the poisonous impact what is to follow may have on the hearer or hearers. Now, I understand why fool…

The Igbo People, Culture and Character: by Okoro Ojiaku, (Bradenton, Florida: Booklucker.com, 2015), 178 Pages This book is written in the best tradition of the social sciences. It reads like it was written by a political scientist. The language is measured, detached, dispassionate and impersonal; it reads like a paper presented by a professor of political science to his fellow social scientists. The language is descriptive and not loaded with emotions (except in the last two chapters in which the author gave his personal opinions on how to preserve Igbo culture and language). It appears that the author has a…

The scientific method is a way of looking at things; it is a way of looking that accepts as true only those things that observers can verify as true. For an idea to be scientific it must be universally perceived as true and is verifiable by any observer who follows the scientific method. An idea that cannot be verified is discarded. Karl Popper added the additional criterion of falsifiability; an idea must be falsifiable to be scientific; that is, there is a way to prove its truth or lack of it. For example, if one says that there is God…

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is an unedited press release from the BUHARI SUPPORT ORGANISATION DIASPORA UK; For release on Tuesday, 29 January 2015) PRESS RELEASE: Nigerians in United Kingdom Endorse Buhari for President January 29, 2015 (London, UK) Nigerian Citizens under the aegis of Nigerians in the Diaspora UK, an umbrella group of several partisan and non-partisan groups came together and endorsed the candidacy of General Mohammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), for the presidency at next month’s election. This was contained in the communiqué of at least eight (8) groups who jointly hosted the representative…

Amit Goswami et al (1995). The Self-Aware Universe: How consciousness creates the material world. (New York: Putnam), 320 pages. Book review by Ozodi Osuji Traditionally, a new book is published. The publishers want to garner as many readers for the book as is possible; they pay book reviewers to review the book, especially in major newspapers located at major markets, such as New York, Los Angeles and London. This book, The Self-Aware Universe is not new and no one is paying me to review it so that potential readers may buy it hence make money for the publisher and the…

Byron Katie, Loving What Is. (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002), 322 pages A book review by Ozodi Osuji Byron Katie Reid was a typical middle class white American woman, married with three children and living in the desert country of Northern California. Life seemed to be going well until she found herself clinically depressed. She took to staying on her bed and did not have the energy to engage in the activities of daily living, such as work, food, sports, socializing and personal grooming. She languished on her bed and like most depressed people did not see any reason…

I got my August issue of scientific American last week. In it is an article providing a different take on the origin of the universe? Many of you probably know that the current hypothesis on the origin of the universe is George Gamow's Big Bang hypothesis (the term is borrowed from Fred Hoyle....Hoyle, in a BBC interview, was making fun of Lemaitre/Gamow's view that the universe began in a cosmic egg, exploded and expanded, as Alexander Friedman and Edwin Hubble contended; Hoyle believed in what he called the Steady State hypothesis...that the universe has always been around). The Big Bang…

Jonathan Gatlin, Bill Gates: The Path to the future. (New York: Avon Books, 1999)214 pages. Book Review by Ozodi Osuji This book is not an authorized biography; that is, Bill Gates did not seek out Jonathan Gatlin and ask him to write a biography of him, as Steve Jobs had asked Walter Isaacson to write his biography; Steve realized that he was dying and wanted someone to write about his history; Bill is still around and kicking and has no need for someone to write his history; his story is still a work in progress. Gatlin did what many journalists…

Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 630 pages Book Review by Ozodi Osuji Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are the face of the computer industry; they did for the electronics industry what Alexander Graham Bell did for telegraph, Thomas Edison did for electricity, John Rockefeller did for petroleum, Henry Ford did for the automobile industry and Boeing and Northrop did for the aviation industry. It seems that when a new industry emerges a few persons go for broke in it, throw their all into it and make it big in it and in popular culture come…

By Ozodi Thomas Osuji This movie can help you clarify who you are and your vocation in life. Last night (May 22, 2014) I went to a movie, Divergent. The movie depicted a society where at a certain age (say, after high school) all young people are tested and assigned to one of five factions. Each faction is a functional area (intellectuals, military, rulers, service, farmers etc.). The idea is that each person has an aptitude for a given area of work and that that aptitude could be tested for and ascertained and he is assigned to that area and…

Good day and compliment of the season to you sons and daughters of Oyo State. Precisely on the 3rd of February, 1976, thirty-eight years ago, our state, Oyo State was created by the then military government led by Late General Murtala Mohammed, the then old western state was divided into Ogun, Ondo and Oyo states respectively. In 1991, Osun state was carved out of what today is known as Oyo state. Our dear state, Oyo is noted for its prominent historical and physical landmarks in art, science and culture. Up till date, the exploits and brilliance of the warriors our…

John Tataw Manga, The Dialectic of Economic Development. (New York: Xlibris, 2013) 172 Pages Review by Ozodi Osuji This book is a joy to read; in fact, it is as if the writer is proficient in literary writing and deployed that skill in his discourse on the dialectics of economic development in the southern Hemisphere of our planet. The theme of the book is technology transfer. The author, apparently, has given quite a bit of thinking to the question: why is the south not developed? By the south he is really talking about Africa, for if he includes Asian and…

There you go, Dr. Paul Komba. Border security around the Republic of Congo has been a long standing issue for military and policy. Dr. Komba weighs in with insight and solution offering a degree of hopeful outcome. From your analytic research and competence, here is a book that stands out on security issues and porous border challenges. Thank you Dr. Komba for challenging yourself to write this master piece on Security around the Congo borders. By craving to inform and solve the problems posed out there, you have offered what I will call a rare degree of solution in just…